Spore Interview with Lucy Bradshaw

Wow…this interview over at Gamers Global has me fired up for Spore! It is 4 pages full information for you to devour. One of the questions caught my eye on user created content from the game in which I will share with you.

GamersGlobal: User generated content obviously is a huge trend, you see it in Sims 2 and many other games, there are modders creating whole new games out of existing ones. How much control do you think you can give away and still keep the game within the boundaries you’ve imagined?

Lucy Bradshaw: We wanted to have an evolution from what we did in earlier games, all the way back to SCURK. Which stands for ‘Sim City Urban Renewal Kit’, it became available in Sim City 2000. With that tool, players could create their own buildings and insert them into the game. We created editors for bulding architecture, we’ve created the Face Maker and the Sin Maker and the Transmodifier for The Sims. All these tools were not exactly easy to use. There were some insanely great modders that have made some amazing buildings and even were able to work on the simulation aspect. We let people open up the RAW files to be able to tell the game how it could use the new buildings in a certain manner. We allowed players to make certain object scripts. But those mods have always been about very few creators and lots of users. We wanted to bring this creativity to all players, we want to surprise players with their own creativity. I think we have succeeded pretty well with that! Not being an artist myself, I am really happy with the kind of creatures I can make. But on top of that we’re always surprised by what the players do. That’s part of the reason why we allow for ping files and Sporepedia cards with the stats on them: We’re open, we’re leaving some open territory to the players. We want to be surprised what some of our fans, some incredible diligent people might achieve.